Saturday, March 31, 2012

Bright, cheery, and fun "T's" everywhere you look! I finished my Bibelot this afternoon using both Hoopla and Punctuation charm packs and a white background fabric with mini multi-colored polka dots from the fabric line, Neighborhood. This layout took a few tries for me, but I'm finally happy with it.

The rows were put together Thursday night, but then I realized half of my quilt had the block borders going in straight rows, not staggered like I wanted them to be. Somehow when I started the layout I thought the haphazard look I really liked about the quilt came from the T's going in different directions so I focused on that and also the color placement. Once the rows were sewn together and I got a better look at it, I realized I really needed to focus on the borders being staggered to get the look I was after, so, as Kermit would say, "rippit." (I watched The Muppet Movie last night.)

I just love these mini dots!

I tried to only change the direction of the blocks and not move the colors around, because I liked the fabrics where they were, but somehow the straight configuration of the block borders just migrated to another spot on the quilt! Since I really liked the way Carrie's layout looked on the cover of her pattern, I decided to go with the way she had her blocks placed, with a few changes. This was one of my favorite Schnibbles to make despite several tries with the layout. I liked how the borders on two sides of the blocks made the quilt look so random, although mine certainly wasn't!

There are lots of beautiful Bibelot quilts floating around out there in Blogland and I can't wait to see even more of them in the parade on Sinta and Sherri's blogs in the next few days. I wonder what pattern is in store for April?

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Thursday, March 22, 2012

What was I thinking? We just got back from a trip to Tampa, which involved going to a popular amusement park and riding lots of crazy roller coasters. You see, we have a big coaster fan in the family who only recently became tall enough and brave enough to ride these big rides. So off we went. I thought I'd share some pictures with you. Keep in mind it isn't easy to take pictures of these huge coasters with your phone!

Did I take any pictures of the rides that I rode? The answer is no. I guess I was just too disoriented by the time I got off the rides. I am proud to say that I rode two big coasters. One wooden one, and also the latest edition in the park that is about one mile long and does go upside down.

My coaster fan rode all five of the big roller coasters at the park so we got him a tee shirt that says "Mission Five" and describes each roller coaster. He is proud of that shirt!

Oh my!! This one makes my head spin just looking at it.

I was able to get this picture of some of my family members coming out of that loop.

The next day we went to an aquarium.

This guy looked like he was trying to get me to take his picture and put it on my blog.

Posing again for the camera.

On the way out of town we stopped for lunch at the Taco Bus. It's a restaurant that has been featured on a few shows on the Food Network, including Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Delicious and fun! We were also able to eat at another Tampa restaurant featured on the show earlier in our trip. We found that this was a great way to choose good places to eat while we were on the road.

If you have been patient enough to stay with me until this point, thanks for looking at our vacation photos and I appreciate your visit! I know that there wasn't much quilting in this post. Well none actually, but I've been working on all of those T's in Bibelot and I'll have a finish to show you soon! Enjoy your Spring Break!

Just one more thing, this is the second time I wrote this post. I had it saved for a few hours in Blogger, or so I thought. When I went to have my family read it, it had disappeared! Only the title remained! I have no idea what happened! Arg!!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

After participating in the bag swap hosted by Kris earlier in the year, I just had to make more bags! Stopping at just one wasn't an option for me! Check out the first bag I made with this great Lollipop Bag pattern here. My latest Lollipop

Bag is made with some colorful Kaffe Fassett fabric and some funky dots that I found at my LQS. I believe the rosette is a Kona solid. Those bright colors are even more fun in person.

For a few weeks I was searching the town to find swivel clips and D rings. I didn't find them in time to use on my first bag, but finally.........mission accomplished! Now the handle can be removed when it's not needed. It just adds a fun extra touch. The rosette still had me a little intimidated. Once I got started again, it was pretty easy.

Here's a top view of the bag as I was making it. This timeI remembered to keep the zipper only halfway zipped when I sewed the sides and bottom together. Do you know what happens if the zipper is fully zipped when the sides and bottom are sewn? I do! You get a lovely bag sewn together inside out, with no way to turn it the correct way without removing some stitches. Oh, well! Lesson learned!

You can be sure I'll be making more of these. I even have the fabric to get started!

Friday, March 9, 2012

The finished product.
I did go a little crazy with this and rework some of the seams so the stripes were evenly spaced.

I've been working on some bias binding for a project that I quilted recently. The black and white stripe on the bias should look great with the bright stars and the white background fabric. I'll find out tonight when I put the binding on!

Getting ready to mark lines for cutting the continuous strip with the help of a yardstick.

A continuous strip of bias binding is something I've done before, but I had to read the directions again, and again, and again as I went along. Two different sets of directions. I'm not sure if using two different sets of directions helped me or hurt me. It was one of those things I couldn't exactly picture by just reading the directions alone. I had to read the directions as I went through the process to understand how it was supposed to work, even thought it's not that complicated, just hard to picture. I'm cutting myself a little slack because it's been a long time!

WRONG! ........but I didn't realize it when I took the picture.
Only when I got to the next step did I see my mistake.

In the picture above I didn't offset the fabric like I should have so it would create one continuous strip when I did the cutting. I took the picture to show a few parts of the process, not knowing I was taking a picture of a mistake! I'm glad I noticed before it was too late!

This is the way it should be!

Here you can see the way it should be, with the edges offset and the vertical lines that I drew......they are very faint in the picture.......matching up. I started cutting with scissors, not a rotary cutter, on the bottom right corner, not at the tip, but where the straight edge meets the triangular section. This is actually a tube of fabric at this point, so using a rotary cutter would be a bad, bad idea. I say this because in my mind that is what I was going to use until I remembered how the cutting worked. Another picture would have been good here, but I didn't take one. Anyway, I wound up with a continuous length of bias binding! This was not really meant to be a tutorial. I just thought I'd show a few steps of the process, including where I messed up! Maybe the next time you make some bias binding you'll remember my troubles and that will make it easier for you.

Delicious!!!!

On a different note, yesterday was my birthday! I was treated to a relaxing day of quilting and fun with my family! We ate Chicago style pizza from our favorite pizza place and the boys surprised me with an ice cream cake after dinner. Yummy frosting with vanilla ice cream on the top layer, those delicious cookie crunchies in the middle, and of course tasty chocolate ice cream on the bottom. It doesn't get much better than that! Thank you boys for the wonderful day :-)

Monday, March 5, 2012

First, thank you so much to all of you who helped me figure out my comment verification conundrum. I appreciate you taking the time to help me. I was planning on deleting the post after a few comments, but got sidetracked by an out of state soccer tournament for my youngest son. Driving rains, heavy winds, and giant swarms of large angry gnats prevented me from responding to the comments and deleting the post between soccer games. I was afraid that if I wasn't paying attention, I would either end up being hit by a wayward soccer ball or be carried away by a large swarm of not so friendly bugs. In the end, our team won, so it was worth being cold, wet, and itchy.

He is small compared to the bugs I saw.

Can you believe with all that talk about being cold, that I didn't bring a quilt with me?

Getting motivated for the championship game.

A little of the action.

We also enjoyed our time walking along the beach the final morning of the tournament. Our room had an ocean view, so we could enjoy the beach rain or shine. The boys were very excited about their win, so it was a great weekend for everyone.

Because of all of the creative comments on my word verification post, I have decided not to delete it. Thanks again for all of your help. Blog friends are the best!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Last night I tried to turn off the word verification on my blog. This new two word thing is driving me crazy! It's so difficult to read and too long to type! Anyway, I haven't gotten a comment since so I'm wondering if the whole thing is working. My DH tried to help me out by leaving a comment from his iphone, but it didn't show up on my blog. Would you mind helping me out by trying to leave a comment on this post? I'd appreciate it if you would email me from my profile if you do try to leave a comment and it doesn't show up. I just can't figure out if its working. I appreciate your help! After I get a few replies I plan to remove this post. It's just a test. Thank you so much!!

Edited to add that I decided to keep this post up instead of deleting it like I had previously planned. A wet, cold, buggy soccer tournament kept me from deleting the post the next day. When I found time to delete it, I thought the comments were funny and interesting and other bloggers might be interested in the responses so I decided to keep the post. Turning off the word verification seemed to work this time around. I plan to keep it off unless I experience problems.